`` School Vs Education `` By Russel Baker

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he is fed for a lifetime. In today’s society, education is very similar to this statement. Schools are commanded to teach aspects of life that only benefit the student for an end-of-the-year test. Students are not taught what is to come in the life after school. Because of the poor quality in education today, the emphasis on standardized test has become overwhelming.

In There’s A Reason They Choose Schools, Timothy Wheeler argues that mass murders aim for locations with “gun-free zone” school campuses. He also states that the shooters are usually students who hold “school-related grudges.” He also believes that the shooters take in consideration that schools do not have a high security system. Wheeler believes that there should be responders stationed at every school. These responders may be trained security guards, teachers, or students. Wheeler is definitely accurate when he argues that schools should have armed first responders because the student’s safety is what’s important. He is also correct that mass shooters aim for schools because they are an easier target than most.

The function of the education system is to improve students education and prepare them for the real world. Students within that system should receive an “A” when they have mastered the information they are being taught. However, grades no longer accurately reflect how much students have learned. Since 1998 teachers have handed out more A-grades while the average SAT scores have actually fallen. In fact, as Greg Toppo states, an author for USA Today, the amount of A’s handed out actually went up close to ten percent (4). Students can manipulate their courses so that they can get good grades without actually learning much of anything. With grades not accurately representing what students have learned and charter schools failing to solve problehms, teachers need to change how they structure their class or grade assignments.

Getting an education is the main goal for everyone, although it is easy to obtain there are some obstacles to it. One of the main obstacles students face at the beginning of their education is standardized tests. Schools have started to adopt this type of tests as their main way to evaluate students’ intelligence and teachers’ effectiveness to educate the students. The way students used to learn has changed, in order to get them ready for the tests they have to spend much of the school time preparing for it instead of learning something they can use in their future life. According to Bruce Jacobs in No Child Left Behind's Emphasis on 'Teaching to the Test' Undermines Quality Teaching, a 2007 study by the University of Maryland teachers were put in much pressure and had thoughts to teach the test […]. This shows that teachers have also been affected by standardized tests in a way they have more pressure to make students pass. Having teachers ‘teach the test’ means their way to educate has been corrupted. In most cases when teachers’ ability to educate has been changed leads them to practice methods not convenient for scholars. One of these methods is memorization, in Relying on High-Stakes Standardized Tests to Evaluate Schools and Teachers: A Bad Idea by Hani Morgan describes how students start to adapt to an “inferior type of learning, based on memorization and recall students gain when teachers

The United States of America used to be known as one of the greatest countries to be apart of. From the jobs to the economy to education people loved to be apart of the American culture. The problem many Americans are facing today is poor education. Since America is viewed as a high profile country many people have prominent expectations on what they are receiving, specifically the education. The fact is that there are major problems with all levels of the education system today. Starting with early education, teachers are quick to say children needs to be medicated or put into special education. Proceeding to the general or high school education where kids are graduating but not prepared for what’s after. Lastly how higher education or college can hardly be afforded in today’s society. As a result of the failing education system, many parents blame the child or society when in actuality the failing system is corrupted by some teachers, lack of preparation, and lack of affordability in higher education.

The Essentials of a Good Life by Diane Ravitch was an essay that really got me rethinking what we call the school system today. It felt extremely relatable since I have spent over 13 years in school and I recognize almost all the points she made about the problems with school today. Many of her main points have to do with how schools are too focused on standardized testing and how they don’t teach creativity in school. This is a big problem in today’s society because school seems to be doing a lot less of what it was first meant to do which is prepare their students for the future. After reading her essay I believe we shouldn’t be focused on standardized testing and we should be spending more time teaching students how to be leaders, independent, and creative because these are qualities that promote success in today’s society.

Furthermore, the author points out that grades are not improving because students and education are improving but rather because parents and students are demanding grades to be adjusted according to what they think it is needed not what it is deserved. “Students and parents are demanding -- and getting -- what they think of as their money's worth” (Staples, 216). Students are not receiving the grade they truly deserve based on their work but what the parents and the students themselves

Many may believe that the United States school system is flawless; that no other countries school system or organization is as advanced as ours, “just like our government.” Those people need to come into the realization that our school system is broken, we need to be realists and not dreamers when it comes to something as serious as our education. Our school system has not been putting in the needed or required effort to reach the goals of true education or a good education that we, as students, deserve. Schools have been cheating us of what we deserve. Although some may believe our school system is perfect, it is not; our school system is broken and it needs to be fixed.

Education in America has drastically decreased in efficiency in the last fifty years. Schools in America do not care about their students, or their education; they care about the test scores achieved by their students. The American education system is severely flawed in many ways. These flaws are more dire than they are made out to be, since they incapacitate the ability of their students to learn the material taught. This occurs because it is more important to pass a class than to retain the information they obtain.

There are numerous issues that plague the public education system. Several of the concerning challenges that it faces today are: The lack of familial support or guidance some students receive, the increase in the population of individuals that seem to undervalue the benefit of an education, and the test-centered curriculum structure that is applied in a majority of schools, within the system. There desperately needs to be an engagement of ideas to mend the problems that the education system faces. Not only would it allow students a better chance at exercising their full potential, but society as a whole, will reap the benefits of a well-rounded education for all.

“Our educational goal [is] the production of caring, competent, loving, lovable people” . The students found in the schools across the United State are the future of America. They are the doctors, teachers, business people, lawyers and many other roles, that will be out in the workforce in the years to come. What they learn in school will impact them immensely; it is the responsibility of a teacher to give students the best education in order to ensure the common good of the future. It is essential for students to not only learn content matter, but also the skills to enable them to participate in a democracy. Due to standardized testing, the emphasis of education has become on score and rankings rather than learning. A standardized test does not look at the whole student, the scores provided are on a very narrow aspect of education. In the classroom, there are countless ways for teachers to assess the student as a whole person not as just a score. Standardized tests scores should not be the sole criteria for determining a student’s academic achievement.

Proving our knowledge on a test-based system is the new way of expanding our credentials from high school to the real world. The Class of 2020 is the first class to be taught based off of testing – without any other learning alternatives. Scott L. Newstok, an English Renaissance Literature professor, urges millennials to “think like Shakespeare.” Newstok meant not what Shakespeare thinks, but how he thought. We should embrace the opportunities and freedom that college gives us. Sixteenth century learning is said to be a cure for our students who are being produced for one set job; in the sense that we should be teaching our students basic skills for living in our society. Public schools just do not contain skills

According the most recent national assessment recorded in the Washington post, “the nations high school seniors have shown no improvement in math and reading performances since 2009.” In the most recent years, education has taken a huge downfall. Since 2010, over 45% of students drop out. Many students have problems with the grading system, so many different testing programs and having to follow a set of rules and not expand on those rules. The education system needs to induce more creativity, enforce the ways on how education is important and elaborate more on the rules of grading.

“Learning is so much more then filling in the right bubble.” said Obama. That quote was explaining how schools these days are just teaching for the test. They don’t teach anything about real life, and real life situations. There are two sides to my argument and those sides are ,1 Is the testing system is fine and does not need to be changed. 2 The testing system needs help and needs to be changed. I think the testing system needs to be changed because we focus only on test scores,stress,and we need to put in time and money.

In today’s generation, high school kids can take college level classes in high school. Before they can take these classes, they have to pass several placement test to decide what level of education they are at. Placement tests now decide where and what we can do in life; they’re suppose to show “how smart” someone is in school. Even though placement tests are important, it has been proven that there are problems with not only the tests but how the teachers in elementary schools teach/prepare the students.